“Ah, but I’ve got to attend, whether she goes or not. Matter of business.”
“Oh. Well then?”
“If you accidentally dropped in at my house during the eleventh hour, you could soothe the invalid and then offer to console Gazi by taking her out yourself.”
“So? And whither should I waft this pretty little ramanduseed?”
Fallon suppressed a smile at the thought of Gazi’s heft. “There’s a revival of Harian’s The Conspirators opening in the Sahi tonight. I’ll pay for the seats.”
Kordaq stroked his chin. “An unusual offer, but—by Bakh, I’ll do it, Master Antane! Captain Kyum owes me an evening’s duty with the Guard. I’ll send him to the armory in my stead. During the eleventh hour, eh?”
“That’s right. And there’s no hurry about bringing her home early, either.” At the gleam in Kordaq’s eye, Fallon added: “Not, you understand, that I’m making you a present of her!”
Fallon got home for lunch, finding Gazi still in her sunny mood. After lunch, he settled down with a copy of Zanid’s. quintan newspaper, the Rashm, a mythological name that might be roughly translated as “Stentor.” Soon he began to complain of feeling ill. “Gazi, what was in that food?”
“Nought out of the ordinary, dear one. The best badr and a fresh-killed ambar.”
“Hmp.” Fallon had gotten over the squeamishness of Earth-men towards eating the ambar, an invertebrate something like a lobster-sized roach. But since the creature decayed rapidly it would make a good excuse. A little later, he began to writhe and groan, to Gazi’s patent alarm. When another hour had passed he was back in bed, looking stricken, while Gazi in her disappointment dissolved into a fit of hysterical weeping, beating the wall with her fists.
When her shrieks and sobs had subsided enough to enable her to speak articulately, she wailed: “Surely the God of the Earthmen is set against our enjoying a moiety of harmless pleasure! And all that lovely gold squandered on my new clothes, now never to be worn! Would we’d placed it at interest in a sound bank.”
“Oh, we’ll—unh—find an occasion for them,” said Fallon, grunting with simulated pain. His feeble conscience pricked him at this point. He felt that he had never given Gazi credit for her virtue of thrift; she had a much more acute sense of the value of a kard than he.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I shall be well by the tenth hour.”
“Shall I fetch Qouran the Physician?”
“I wouldn’t let one of your Krishnan doctors lay a finger on me. They’re apt to take out an Earthman’s liver in the belief it’s his appendix.”
“There’s a physician of your own kind, a Dr. Nung, in the Gabnj. I could fetch him…”
“No, I’m not that badly off. Besides, he’s a Chinese and would probably feed me ground yeki-bones.” (This was hardly fair to Dr. Nung, but served as an excuse.)
Fallon found the rest of the long afternoon very dull, for he did not dare to read, lest he give the impression of feeling too well. When the time for his third meal came he said that he did not wish any food. This alarmed Gazi—used to his regular and hearty appetite—more than his groans and grimaces.
After an interminable wait, the light of Roqir dimmed and the door-gong bonged. Gazi hastily wiped away her remaining tears and went to the door. Fallon heard voices from the vestibule, and in came Captain Kordaq.’
“Hail, Master Antane!” said this last. “Hearing you were indisposed, I came to offer such condolence as my rough taciturn soldier’s tongue is capable of. What ails my martial comrade?”
“Oh, something I ate. Nothing serious—I shall be up by tomorrow. Do you know my jagaini, Gazi er-Doukh?”
“Surely. We were formerly fast friends and recognized each other at the door, not without a melancholy pang for all the years that have passed since last we saw each other. ‘Tis a pleasure to encounter her once again after so long a lapse.” The captain paused as if in embarrassment. “I had a small unworthy offer of entertainment to proffer—seats to the opening of The Conspirators—but if you’re too unwell…”
“Take Gazi,” said Fallon. “We were going to Kastambang’s party, but I can’t make it.”
There was a lot of polite cross-talk, Gazi saying that she would not leave Fallon sick, and Fallon—supported by Kordaq—insisting that she go. She soon gave in and prepared to be on her way in her spangled transparent skirt and glittering ulemda.
Fallon called: “Mind that you take your raincoat. I don’t care if there isn’t a cloud in the sky. I don’t want to take a chance of getting those new clothes wet!”
As soon as they were out of the house, Fallon bounded out of bed and dressed in his best tunic and diaper. This was going to turn out better than he had thought. For one thing, even if he had been able to take Gazi to Kastambang’s, having to look out for her would have hampered him in his project.
For another, she had been hinting that she would like to be taken to The Conspirators. And Fallon, having seen The Conspirators once in Majbur, had no wish to witness the drama again.
Fallon wolfed some food, buckled on his sword, took a quick swig of kvad and a quick look at himself in the mirror, and set out for the mansion of Kastambang the banker.
Chapter IX
Hundreds of candles cast their soft light upon the satiny evening-tunics of the male Krishnans and upon the bare shoulders and bosoms of the females. Jewels glittered; noble metals gleamed.
Watching the glitter, Fallon (not normally a very cogitative man) asked himself: These people are being pitchforked from feudalism into capitalism In a few years. Will they go on to a socialist or communist stage, as some Terran nations did, before settling down to a kind of mixed economy? The inequality of wealth might be considered an incitement to such a revolutionary tendency. But then, Fallon reflected, the Krishnans had shown themselves so far too truculent, romantic, and individualistic to take kindly to any collectivist regime.
He sat by himself, sipping the mug of kvad that he had obtained from the bar and watching the show on the little stage. If Gazi had been here, he would have had to dance with her in the ballroom, where a group of Balhibo musicians was giving a spiritedly incompetent imitation of a Terran dance-band. As Anthony Fallon danced badly and found the sport a bore, his present isolation did not displease him.
On the stage, a couple who advertised themselves as Ivan and Olga were leaping, bounding, and kicking up their booted feet in a Slavonic type of buck-and-wing. Although they wore rosy make-up over their greenish skins, had their antennae pasted down to their foreheads, and concealed their elvish ears, the male by pulling his sheepskin Cossack hat down over them and the female by her coiffure, Fallon could see from small anatomical details that they were Krishnans. Why did they pretend to be Terrans? Because, no doubt, they made a better living that way; to Krishnans, the Earth (and not their own world) was the place of glamor and romance.
A hand touched Fallon’s shoulder. Kastambang said: “Master Antane, all is prepared. Will you come, pray?”
Fallon followed his host to a small room where two servants came forward, one with a mask and the other with a voluminous black robe.”
“Don these,” said Kastambang. “Your interlocutor will be similarly dight to forestall recognition.”
Fallon, feeling foolishly histrionic, let the servants put the mask and robe upon him. Then Kastambang, puffing and hobbling, led him through passages hung with black velvet, which gave Fallon an uneasy feeling of passing down the alimentary canal of some great beast. They came to the door of another chamber, which the banker opened.
As he motioned Fallon in he said: “No tricks or violence, now. My men do guard all exits.”
Then he went out and closed the door.
As Fallon’s eyes surveyed the dim-lit chamber, the first thing that they encountered was a single, small oil-lamp burning in a niche before a writhesome, wicked-looking little copper god from far Ziada, beyond the Triple Seas. And against the opposite wall he saw a squat black shadow
which suddenly shot up to a height equal to his own.
Fallon started, and his hand flew to his rapier-hilt—when he remembered that he had been relieved of his sword when he entered the house. Then he realized that the shadow was merely another man—or Krishnan—robed and hooded like himself.
“What wish you to know?” asked the black figure.
The voice was high with tension; the language was Balhibou; the accent—it sounded like that of eastern Balhib, where the tongue shaded into the westernmost varieties of Gozashtandou.
“The complete ritual of Yesht,” said Fallon, fumbling for a pad and pencil and moving closer to the lamp.
“By the God of the Earthmen, ‘tis no mean quest,” said the other. “The enchiridion of prayers and hymns alone does occupy a weighty volume—I can remember but little of these.”
“Is this enchiridion secret?”
“Nay. You can buy it at any good bookshop.”
“Well then, give me everything that’s not in the enchiridion: the costumes, movements, and so on.”
An hour or so later, Fallon had the whole thing down in shorthand, nearly filling his pad. “Is that all there is?”
“All that I know of.”
“Well, thanks a lot. You know, if I knew who you were, perhaps you and I could do one another a bit of good from time to time. I sometimes collect information…”
“For what purpose, good my sir?”
“Oh—let’s say for stories for the Rashm.” Fallon had actually supplied the paper with a few stories, which furnished a cover for his otherwise suspicious lack of regular employment.
The other said: “Without casting aspersions upon your goodwill, sir, I’m also aware that one who knew me and my history could, were he so minded, also wreak me grievous harm.”
“No harm intended. After all I’d let you know who I was.”
“I have more than a ghost of an idea,” said the other. “A Terran from your twang, and I know that our host has bidden few such hither this night. A choosy wight.”
Fallon thought of leaping upon the other and tearing off the mask. But then, he might get a knife in the ribs; and even unarmed, the fellow might be stronger than he while the average Earthman, used to a slightly greater gravity, could out-wrestle the average Krishnan, that was not always true; besides Fallon was not so young as once.
“Very well,” he said. “Good-bye.” And he knocked on the door by which he had entered.
As this door opened, Fallon heard his interlocutor knock likewise upon the other door. Fallon stepped out and followed the servant back through the velvet-hung passage to the ‘room where he had received his disguise, which was here removed.
“Did you obtain satisfaction?” asked Kastambang, limping in. “Have you that which you sought?”
“Yes, thanks. May I ask what’s the program for the rest of the evening.”
“You’re just in good time for the animal-battle.”
“Oh?”
“Aye, aye. If you’ll attend, I’ll have a lackey show you to the basement. Attendance will be limited to males, firstly because we deem so sanguinary a spectacle unfit for the weaker sex, and secondly because so many of ‘em have been converted by your Terran missionaries to the notion that such a spectacle is morally wrong. When our warriors become so effeminated that the sight of a little gore revolts ‘em, then shall we deserve to fall beneath the shafts and scimitars of the Jungava.”
“Surely, I’ll go,” said Fallon.
Kastambang’s “basement” was an underground chamber the size of a small auditorium. Part of it was given over to a bar, gaming tables, and other amenities. The end, where the animal-fight was scheduled to occur, was hollowed out into a funnel—shaped depression ringed by several rows of seats and looking over the edge of a circular steep-sided pit a dozen or fifteen meters in diameter and about half as deep. The chamber was crowded with fifty or sixty male Krishnans. The air was thick with scent and smoke, and loud with talk in which each speaker tried to shout down all the others. Bets flew and drinks foamed.
As Fallon arrived, a couple of guests who had been arguing passed beyond the point of debate to that of action. One snapped his fingers at the other’s nose, whereupon the second let the first have the contents of his stein in the face. The finger-snapper sputtered, screamed with rage, felt for his missing sword, and then flew upon his antagonist. In an instant they were rolling about the floor, kicking, clawing, and pulling each other’s bushy green hair.
A squad of lackeys separated them, one nursing a bitten thumb and the other a fine set of facial scratches, and hustled them out by separate exits.
Fallon got a mug of kvad at the bar, greeted a couple of acquaintances, and wandered over to the pit, wither the rest of the company were also drifting. He thought: I’ll stay just long enough to see a little of this show, then push off for home. Mustn’t let Kordaq and Gazi get back ahead of me.
By hurrying round to the farther side of the pit he managed to get one of the last front-row seats. As he leaned over the rail, he glanced to the sides and recognized his right-hand neighbor—a tall thin youngish ornately clad Krishnan, as Chindor er-Quinan, the leader of the secret opposition to mad King-Kir.
Catching Chindor’s eye he said: “Hello there, your Altitude.”
“Hail, Master Antane. How wags your world?”
“Well enough, I suppose, though I haven’t been back to it lately. What’s on the program?”
“ ’Twill be a yeki captured in the Forest of Jerab against a shan from the steaming jungles of Mutaabwk. Oh, know you my friend, Master Liyara the Brazer?”
“Delighted to meet you,” said Fallon, grasping the proffered thumb and offering his own.
“And I to meet you,” said Liyara. “It should be a spectacle rare, I ween. Would you make a small wager? I’ll take the shan if you’ll give odds.”
“Even, money on the yeki,” said Fallon, staring.
The eastern accent was just like that which he had heard from the masked party. Was he mistaken, or had Liyara given him a rather keen look too?
“Dupulan take you!” said Liyara. “Three to two…”
The argument was interrupted by a movement and murmur in the audience, which had by now nearly all taken their seats. A tailed Koloftu popped out of a small door in the side of” the pit, walked out to the middle of the arena, struck a small gong that he carried for silence, and announced:
“Gentle sirs, my master Kastambang proffers a beast-fight for your pleasure. From this portal…” (the hairy one gestured) “shall issue a full-grown male yeki from the forest of Jerab; while from yonder opening shall come a giant shan, captured at great risk in the equatorial jungles of Mutaabwk. Place your bets quickly, as the combat will begin as soon as we can drive the creatures forth. I thank your worships.”
The Koloftu skipped out the way he had come. Liyara resumed: “Three to two, I said…”
But he was again interrupted by a grinding of gears and a rattle of chains, which announced that the barriers at the two larger portals were being raised. A deep roar reverberated up out of the arena, answered by a frightful snarl, as if a giant were tearing sheet-iron.
The roar came again, almost deafening, and out bounded a great brown furry carnivore: the yeki, looking something like a six-legged mink of tiger size. And out from the other entrance flowed an even more horrendous monster, also six-legged, but hairless and vaguely reptilian, with a longish neck and a body that tapered gradually down to a tail. Its leathery hide was brightly colored in a bewildering pattern of stripes and spots of deep green and buff. Fine camouflage for lurking in a thicket in tropical jungles, thought Fallon.
The land animals of Krishna had evolved from two separate aquatic stocks: one, oviparous, and four-legged, while the other was viviparous, and six-legged. The four-limbed subkingdom included the several humanoid species and a number of other forms including the tall camel-like shomal. The six-legged sub-kingdom took in many land forms such as the domesticable ay
a, shaihan, eshun, and bishtar; most of the carnivores; and the flying forms such as the aqebat, whose middle pair of limbs were developed into batlike wings. Convergent evolution had produced several striking parallels between the four-legged and the six-legged stocks, just as it had between the humanoid Krishnans and the completely unrelated Earthmen.
Fallon guessed that both beasts had been deliberately maltreated to rouse them to a pitch of fury. Their normal instinct would be to avoid each other.
The yeki crouched, sliding forward on its belly like a cat stalking a bird, its fangs bared in a continuous growl. The shan reared up, arching its neck into a swan-like curve, as it sidled around on its six taloned legs with a curious clockworky gait. Snarl after snarl came from its fang-bearing jaws. As the yeki came a little closer, the shan’s head shot out and its jaws came together with a ringing snap-but the yeki, with the speed of thought, flinched back out of reach. Then it began its creeping advance again.
The Krishnans were working themselves into a state of the wildest excitement. They shouted bets at each other clear across the pit. They leaped up and down in their seats like monkeys and screamed to those in front to sit down. Beside Fallon, Chindor er-Qinan was tearing his elegant bonnet to pieces.
Snap-snap-snap went the great jaws. The whole audience gave a deafening yell at the first sight of blood. The yeki had not dodged the shan’s lunge quickly enough, and the tropical carnivore’s teeth had gashed its antagonist’s shoulder. Brown blood, like cocoa, oozed down the yeki’s glossy fur.
A few seats away, a Krishnan was trying to make a bet with Chindor, but neither could make himself heard above the din. At last the Krishnan nobleman stumbled over Fallon’s knees and into the aisle. Then he climbed to where his interlocutor was shouting his odds between cupped hands. Others in the rear had climbed over the seats to stand behind those in the front row, peering over their shoulders.
Snap-snap! More blood; both yeki and shan were cut. The air reeked of cigar-smoke, strong perfume, alcohol, and the body-odors of the Krishnans and the beasts below. Fallon coughed. Liyara the Brazer was shrieking something.
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